In Turkey, a woman may show her eyes but must veil her mouth; in the Southern Sahara, men of the Tuareg tribes go about veiled like Turkish ladies. Certain African tribes cover their backs carefully while exposing the rest of their bodies. In other tribes, men, instead of concealing4 their genitals, wear sheaths which exaggerate the size of their organs. In most parts of the earth, women keep the fact of their menstruation a secret. In[Pg 123] others, they wear a cloth of a special color proclaiming that condition when present.
On the Modern Stage, modesty seems satisfied if the nipples and the genitals are duly covered. In some parts of Europe entirely6 naked dancers have been seen in public. Until recently, an unwritten law made it more or less necessary for the male performers to wear more clothing than female ones did. The wave of homosexualism which has followed the war is probably responsible for the growing numbers of naked male actors and dancers who disport7 themselves nowadays on the French stage and elsewhere.
There is a normal form of modesty, however, and there are many abnormal aspects of that elusive8 feeling.
Many animals seek safety and seclusion9 when performing certain important functions of their life, nutrition, reproduction and defecation, which naturally place them at a disadvantage in emergencies requiring flight or fight. Even the boldest among the carnivorous animals, lions and tigers, drag their prey10 to a cave or into the depths of the bush before devouring11 it.
Naked and otherwise shameless and "indelicate" savages12 will often walk a considerable distance from[Pg 124] their village to satisfy their natural needs, and then hide behind bushes or trees.
Races and nations differ greatly in their degree of modesty in relation to nutrition, reproduction and defecation. European races dine in the open, are more or less "shameless" in their love making, they talk freely on sexual topics and erect14 urinals and comfort stations, designated by their exact name, in many public places. Anglo-Saxons hide themselves while eating, are very silent about the processes of reproduction, seldom indulge in public kissing and designate urinals and toilets, which are very scarce in their lands, by cover names such as lavatories15, smoking rooms, etc.
Normal Modesty may then be a survival of the fear which the primitive16 men and women experienced of being surprised and overpowered by hostile animals or tribesmen during an embrace or when unprotected by garments or armor.
In fact, modesty seems to disappear as soon as safety reigns17 or when no hostile element may be suspected of lurking18 in the environment.
A woman strips without shame to undergo a medical examination, men and women appear naked[Pg 125] in public baths where only one sex is admitted at a time, etc.
Then also normal modesty must be considered as an offgrowth of the unavoidable repressions19 of modern, civilised life. Like the incest taboo20, it has been cultivated for reasons of convenience.
Modern community life having placed a thousand restrictions21 upon the age at which we can marry and the conditions under which we should marry, in other words, having delayed considerably22 our normal sexual gratification, an effort has been made to "repress" erotism by concealing "suggestive" parts of the human body.
This is, of course, an abortive23 attempt, for habit is a more potent24 protector against temptation than veils. The races which live practically naked are not more erotic than the fully3 clothed, civilised races or the Arabs who not only cover their entire body and heads but conceal5 even the shape of their bodies in the loose folds of their ample garments. A husband, no longer erotically aroused by his wife's naked body, may be attracted violently by the partly draped body of another woman.
Suggestive Draperies. One of the results of the policy of body-concealment has been to transform certain draperies into sexual symbols of great aphro[Pg 126]disiac power. Certain garments lend to the human body an appeal which it might not have if fully exposed. In other words, the obstacles which are meant to hold back erotism may be used neurotically25 as a morbid27 expression of erotism.
At the present day, however, that form of protection against temptation serves its purpose to some extent and cannot be discarded until mankind has been reeducated. Custom and the law uphold official modesty. The mere28 fact, however, that modesty has to be enforced legally is one of the best arguments against the sentimental29, unscientific view that modesty is an "innate," "natural" feeling of "delicacy30" based upon some "higher," "spiritual" values, etc.
Modern, official modesty is merely a compromise with sexual reality. It has been, like all inhibitory feelings, greatly overestimated31 and forced upon the weaker sex by egotistical men to prevent a display of their female's charms, likely to attract other women-hunters. Weak males with a sense of inferiority have called modesty the typically feminine virtue32.
Excessive Modesty, in men as well as in women, is an abnormal phenomenon, a mask for unconscious lewdness33 and obscenity. It is a neurotic26 means of[Pg 127] protection against uncontrollable desires, or at times an expression of one's "sour grapes" attitude to others.
It is always the shapeless and unattractive woman who is the most vociferous34 champion of highneck gowns and long skirts. A sense of bodily inferiority obsesses35 the woman who does not allow any caresses36 unless the room is darkened. Her modesty yields rapidly, however, to the praise of her attractions which she hears from the mouth of her lover.
Immodest Modesty. A woman took her daughter to a specialist's office for an examination. The girl, asked to strip, complied at once with the doctor's request and stood naked before him without any display of shame.
When they left, the mother made the very unwise remark that her daughter must have lacked modesty entirely to have stood the ordeal37 without any embarrassment38. In this case, it was the mother who lacked "true modesty" and the daughter whose mind was "pure." The girl knew she was in the presence of a physician, but to the more highly sexed mother, the physician was above everything a "man."
This sort of prurient39 modesty which, very often, exerts a baneful40 influence on the love-life of the[Pg 128] individual, is usually due to repressed childhood memories and complexes.
Fear of Love. Stekel, of Vienna, cites the case of a girl who evinced on every occasion a morbid fear of everything connected with love. She avoided men, she protected herself zealously41 against every "suggestive" influence, she decried42 love and marriage and was constantly trying to "spiritualise" the things of the flesh which she considered "bestial43."
Analysis showed that until the age of thirteen she had been perfectly44 normal in her behavior, considering love and marriage as natural human goals.
One day, however, she chanced upon a collection of pornographic photographs belonging to her father. Instead of "corrupting45" her mind, the incident disgusted her and caused her to renounce46 all the things of the flesh and to become unusually, negatively modest.
A patient of mine declared on the occasion of her first call at my office that all men were "beasts." Whenever she associated with a man, at dinner, theater or dancing parties, she suffered from choking sensations, nausea47, etc. Analysis revealed that at the age of six she had been subjected to an attempt at seduction.
[Pg 129]
Another woman patient who went thru a mental crisis in the course of which she gave up all worldly pleasures and decided48 never to marry, merging49 into hysterical50 states very soon afterward51, had bow legs and a tendency to skin eruptions52 which had, on many occasions, proved humiliating to her egotism. Her decision never to marry meant: "I shall not risk showing my deformed53 legs and my skin blemishes54 to a man." Also, at the age of ten, she had witnessed a scene of brutality55 in which a man had dragged his wife on the street by her hair.
She was morbidly56 modest and wept bitterly once when a man whom she knew only slightly, pressed a kiss upon her lips. Withal her dreams revealed a violently erotic temperament57.
Like all exaggerated feelings morbid modesty is the mask for the opposite feelings, passionate58 sexual cravings. The woman who allows every one to kiss her is aroused but little by such caresses. The woman who never kisses any one and pretends she does not like being kissed, is usually the one who knows that a kiss might cause her to lose her self-control and to abandon all modesty.
The puritanical59 male, paragon60 of modesty among his sex, is either an inflammable type who is afraid[Pg 130] of his own sensuality or an impotent individual who protects himself against being put to any sexual test.
That exaggerated modesty is only one of the components61 of the neurotic temperament has been well demonstrated by Adler: "The morbid modesty of neurotics62," he writes, "who cannot visit a public toilet, who are unable to urinate in the presence of others, who avoid the society of women on account of blushing or anxiety or heart palpitations, reveals to us the strained manly63 ambition which supports itself against the original feeling of inferiority.
"The Masculine Protest(craving for virility) of those patients, insecure to the core, forces them into this arrangement whose boundaries encroach upon those of bashfulness and awkwardness. Often, in neurotics of either sex, one observes an inability to go to a toilet in cases of great necessity if some one is looking at them. The greater modesty of women, especially of neurotic women, in all relations of life, originates from the fear which is implanted in them from the earliest childhood that attention might be directed to their sex.
"I have often convinced myself that the behavior of girls and of women is considerably influenced[Pg 131] by this more or less unconscious factor, indeed that the progress of their sexual development, like that of male patients who feel unmanly, the formation of social and professional relations and love relations, are immediately checked as soon as the patient is allowed to play a real 'feminine' or subordinate part or presupposes this expectation from others.
"This fact is in no way affected64 when repressed sexual stimuli65 come to light as the present source of the checks of aggression66. They are similarly arranged and have the purpose of enhancing the fear of the partner and of permitting the retreat decided upon in the plan of life, to be entered upon with certainty; they are therefore acts of foresight67. The neurotic had already in childhood laid the foundation of this foresight and in it is reflected the feeling of shame as the guiding line of reassuring68 modesty and the prudery of civilisation69.
"The previous history of the patient reveals an exaggerated modesty and this is true at times of those who in other respects show a boyish nature; the anxiety of nervous children on being exposed may be observed in their conduct. They exclude every one from the room and lock the door when they are going to undress. This conduct is also observable in boys who have grown up among girls.[Pg 132] In the prognosis of neurosis, this expedient70 of cowardice71 is a bad symptom. It is the equivalent of later castration thoughts and neurotic wishes, the wish to be a woman, for instance, which expresses itself as soon as the fear of the life mate becomes actual or a decision has to be avoided."
Lack of Modesty, when it assumes a morbid form, has, according to Adler, the same meaning as prurient modesty.
"The very shameless, obscene talker," Adler writes, "is trying to demonstrate to his listeners the fact of his great manliness72 of which he is not very sure himself, the very immodest woman merely demonstrates her inability to adapt herself to her feminine role.... In the analysis of such women, at times only in their dreams, is observed the childish expectation of a metamorphosis into a male, an attempted substitute for the will-to-power, the will-to-be-above."
点击收听单词发音
1 modesty | |
n.谦逊,虚心,端庄,稳重,羞怯,朴素 | |
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2 shameful | |
adj.可耻的,不道德的 | |
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3 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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4 concealing | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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5 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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6 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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7 disport | |
v.嬉戏,玩 | |
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8 elusive | |
adj.难以表达(捉摸)的;令人困惑的;逃避的 | |
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9 seclusion | |
n.隐遁,隔离 | |
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10 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
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11 devouring | |
吞没( devour的现在分词 ); 耗尽; 津津有味地看; 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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12 savages | |
未开化的人,野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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13 isolate | |
vt.使孤立,隔离 | |
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14 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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15 lavatories | |
n.厕所( lavatory的名词复数 );抽水马桶;公共厕所(或卫生间、洗手间、盥洗室);浴室水池 | |
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16 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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17 reigns | |
n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 );君主统治时期;任期;当政期 | |
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18 lurking | |
潜在 | |
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19 repressions | |
n.压抑( repression的名词复数 );约束;抑制;镇压 | |
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20 taboo | |
n.禁忌,禁止接近,禁止使用;adj.禁忌的;v.禁忌,禁制,禁止 | |
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21 restrictions | |
约束( restriction的名词复数 ); 管制; 制约因素; 带限制性的条件(或规则) | |
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22 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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23 abortive | |
adj.不成功的,发育不全的 | |
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24 potent | |
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的 | |
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25 neurotically | |
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26 neurotic | |
adj.神经病的,神经过敏的;n.神经过敏者,神经病患者 | |
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27 morbid | |
adj.病的;致病的;病态的;可怕的 | |
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28 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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29 sentimental | |
adj.多愁善感的,感伤的 | |
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30 delicacy | |
n.精致,细微,微妙,精良;美味,佳肴 | |
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31 overestimated | |
对(数量)估计过高,对…作过高的评价( overestimate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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33 lewdness | |
n. 淫荡, 邪恶 | |
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34 vociferous | |
adj.喧哗的,大叫大嚷的 | |
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35 obsesses | |
v.时刻困扰( obsess的第三人称单数 );缠住;使痴迷;使迷恋 | |
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36 caresses | |
爱抚,抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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37 ordeal | |
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验 | |
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38 embarrassment | |
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
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39 prurient | |
adj.好色的,淫乱的 | |
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40 baneful | |
adj.有害的 | |
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41 zealously | |
adv.热心地;热情地;积极地;狂热地 | |
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42 decried | |
v.公开反对,谴责( decry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43 bestial | |
adj.残忍的;野蛮的 | |
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44 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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45 corrupting | |
(使)败坏( corrupt的现在分词 ); (使)腐化; 引起(计算机文件等的)错误; 破坏 | |
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46 renounce | |
v.放弃;拒绝承认,宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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47 nausea | |
n.作呕,恶心;极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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48 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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49 merging | |
合并(分类) | |
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50 hysterical | |
adj.情绪异常激动的,歇斯底里般的 | |
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51 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
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52 eruptions | |
n.喷发,爆发( eruption的名词复数 ) | |
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53 deformed | |
adj.畸形的;变形的;丑的,破相了的 | |
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54 blemishes | |
n.(身体的)瘢点( blemish的名词复数 );伤疤;瑕疵;污点 | |
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55 brutality | |
n.野蛮的行为,残忍,野蛮 | |
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56 morbidly | |
adv.病态地 | |
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57 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
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58 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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59 puritanical | |
adj.极端拘谨的;道德严格的 | |
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60 paragon | |
n.模范,典型 | |
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61 components | |
(机器、设备等的)构成要素,零件,成分; 成分( component的名词复数 ); [物理化学]组分; [数学]分量; (混合物的)组成部分 | |
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62 neurotics | |
n.神经官能症的( neurotic的名词复数 );神经质的;神经过敏的;极为焦虑的 | |
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63 manly | |
adj.有男子气概的;adv.男子般地,果断地 | |
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64 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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65 stimuli | |
n.刺激(物) | |
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66 aggression | |
n.进攻,侵略,侵犯,侵害 | |
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67 foresight | |
n.先见之明,深谋远虑 | |
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68 reassuring | |
a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的,使人放心的 | |
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69 civilisation | |
n.文明,文化,开化,教化 | |
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70 expedient | |
adj.有用的,有利的;n.紧急的办法,权宜之计 | |
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71 cowardice | |
n.胆小,怯懦 | |
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72 manliness | |
刚毅 | |
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